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The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

What's the Longest Word in the English Language?

The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

Sam Kean

History, Arts, Books, Science

4.01.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2021

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How the unique properties of carbon produced a 1,185-letter word... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What's the longest word in the English language?

0:05.0

Shakespeare had to go at it with honorific abilitude in a tautipus,

0:10.0

which, depending on whom you ask,

0:12.0

either means the state of being loaded with honors,

0:15.0

or is an anagram, declaring that Francis Bacon

0:19.0

and not the barred of Avon really wrote Shakespeare's plays.

0:23.0

But that work, a mere 27 letters,

0:25.0

doesn't stretch nearly long enough to count

0:28.0

as the longest word in the English language.

0:31.0

Of course, determining the longest word

0:33.0

is a bit of a mug's game.

0:35.0

What even qualifies as English

0:37.0

can differ in different contexts.

0:40.0

Shakespeare's word was spoken by a clown

0:42.0

in Love's Labor's Lost,

0:44.0

and it obviously comes from Latin.

0:46.0

Listen to this clip of the scene.

0:48.0

Oh, they have lived long on the arms, basket, woods.

0:51.0

My marvel, they must rather not eatin' deeper word.

0:55.0

They might not so long by the edges,

0:57.0

honorific abilitude in a tautipus.

0:59.0

That was easier, swallow them flat dragon.

...

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